Discourse
by Picklepocket
Summary: Veronica and Logan need to talk after the events of 1.19 "Hot Dogs".


Title: Discourse

Pairing/Character: Veronica, Logan  
Rating: T  
Summary: They need to talk.  
Spoilers: Occurs between 1.19 Hot Dogs and 1.20 M.A.D.

It was fifteen days since the Camelot, five since the night Aaron beat the crap out of Trina's sleazy boyfriend. They needed to talk but every snatched stolen moment was too precious to do anything but touch. Each was so parched and could do nothing but drown in the other. It was never enough. Their thirst raged on. And so they did not talk. They touched, they drank and they let the time go.

"We need to talk," she gasped as she caught his earlobe gently between her teeth. He laughed into the soft skin at her throat, his tongue ceasing it's exploration of the curve of her neck. He pulled back. "I know," he said, following the same script they had adopted since that night outside his house, the same script that led to the same end. They conversed only with their lips, their tongues, their fingertips. Never with words. Their lips, their tongues, their fingertips couldn't wound.

"What can I say?"

He hadn't avoided talking…exactly. He was grateful that it hadn't happened yet because he knew what harm words could do. Verbal barbs were his genius. A lifetime honing them on his family made them diamond sharp for her, particularly for her, for over a year. He was sorry. Sorry for all the wounds he inflicted. The abuse he had dished out. He shuddered at the memory of encouraging others to abuse her body for the fun of the salt lick.

When he kissed her now, it was to take away the scars and bruises from every blow he had ever landed or orchestrated. He knew that eternity was not long enough to get them all.

"I don't know what I'm doing."

That was her thought at the Camelot as she looked up at his startled face, before it fled when his mouth descended onto hers. He had ignited a fire that she did not know lay dormant within, a fire that consumed caution and fear and distrust. But the thought had never gone away completely. When she was away from him, free of his odour, it would sometimes struggle to the surface, between the delicious memories and the yearning to create fresh ones. It nagged at her just as his taunts once had. Those taunts that had cut so deep, that had been so incomprehensible. Once she'd heard his reason, knew why he hated her, she understood. He didn't know she knew that. She didn't know if she could tell him. She didn't know when she'd forgiven him.

Perhaps it was because he respected her.

He wasn't sure that he'd ever respected anyone before. Not his father who looked to purchase it with a belt, nor his mother who he had loved but whose dependence on alcohol and drugs shamed him. He laughed out loud when Trina's face floated into view in the maelstrom of his mind. Duncan's face followed and his laughter died in his throat. He wished it didn't feel like betrayal. Duncan had been his best friend for years and he supposed he respected him although it was never a word he had consciously applied. And now there was guilt. As for Lilly…she was like the sun. He was in awe of her and bathed in the light she shone on him, but she shed it indiscriminately and he sometimes hated her for that. He couldn't respect Lilly for that.

What he felt now, for her, was unlike anything he'd felt for Lilly. What he felt now, for her, wasn't the reverence for a goddess. It was something intimate, on an equal footing and much more…real.

Perhaps it was because he was damaged too.

She saw a reflection of herself in him when they looked for his mother. It was more than their mothers having abandoned them. It was that look in his eyes, that look of being haunted by life. It confused her at first. Sure, he lost Lilly, but he didn't lose everything else. His life didn't fall apart. It wasn't until Trina mentioned broken noses and cigarette burns that she began to think that maybe his life had always been in pieces. She'd never known that, despite their years as friends, when she was a different person.

Had Lilly known? She doubted it. Lilly had a way of not letting the troubles of others impinge on her. She thought of Aaron, standing over Goran. Oh god, what had that bong cost him?

What about Duncan?

He'd taken days to tell Duncan about the murder files. Even then, before the Camelot, he felt caught between loyalties and he didn't know why. Yes, he did. She had been there for him, despite everything. For him. Not for money or some other motive. There was only one other person he could say the same of. Duncan. His best friend. So eventually he told Duncan.

Duncan still had feelings for her, he could see it every time he caught Duncan looking at her. When he told Duncan, he could see the shock went deeper than his being a suspect. It shook him that she thought he could have killed his sister. Shook him to his core. And now he was gone.

What would they do when he came back?

What about Lilly?

Lilly had secrets that she didn't tell her best friend, like Weevil. No, she was confident that she wasn't betraying Lilly. She had known that Lilly was never as serious about him as he was about her. Lilly had privately mocked his intensity.

That intensity was all hers now and that thrilled and frightened her in equal measure.

The leather of the back seat was cool against her burning skin. His tongue was tracing its way along the edge of her bra and hers rested on his soft hair as her hand stroked the back of his neck. One of his hands was spread on her bare stomach; the other clasped her free hand, their fingers engaged in their own dance. He raised his head and gazed into her eyes, his dark and liquid in the night light. She smiled and he slid up to take the smile into him, kissing her gently and then increasing the pressure as she commanded with her hand on his head, pulling him further in. As they snaked their arms around each other, the finger ballet ended only for the dance to be taken up by their tongues, exploring and teasing. They moaned in mutual need and desperation and he couldn't hide the desire his body felt. He pulled back, looked at her lying under him, soft and pliable. With a groan, he lifted himself off of her and sat up, sliding across the seat away from the temptation offered.

"Logan?"  
"Not here. Not like this, Veronica."  
"And this attack of the scruples would be because…"

He laughed. He always laughed readily but with her, it came from a new place, a place of pure pleasure. He looked at her, sprawled across the seat, so inviting. He took a deep breath.

"We need to talk."


End file.
